Banca de DEFESA: ISABELA CRISTINA TAVARES DA SILVA

THE MASONIC MIRROR, BY ANDRÉS CASSARD: MAÇONARIA E CUBAN NATIONALISM

Cuban Freemasonry; Cuban nationalism; Andres Cassard.

America is surrounded by different visions of colonial alterity in relation to the History and Memory of the continent, therefore, the investigation of these aspects from the internal perspective helps to break with the paradigms imposed by the spirit of coloniality present in the region, proposing the understanding of the American identity and the breaking of the European imaginary impregnated in the expressions of culture, politics, and social organization. Knowing the constitution of our own History allows us to see the hidden spaces and the narratives not told by the colonizer. Therefore, the present work has as main objectives: to understand the role of Andrés Cassard,s publications for the diffusion of Freemasonry in Cuba; to assist in understanding the vision of Freemasonry projected by Cassard; to promote the debate on the vision of nationalism defended by Cassard in his articles in the periodical El Espejo Masónico (1866-1867). For this purpose, an analysis was carried out of fourteen articles written by Andrés Cassard in the periodical El Espejo Masónico (1866-1867), published in a facsimile version by Ediciones Extramuros in 2007, reproducing the originals available at the Library of the University of Cádiz. As theoretical bases, we rely on the contributions of Cultural, Post-Cultural and Decolonial Studies. We could perceive, through the literary productions of Andrés Cassard, the defense for the formation of a Cuban national community based on the principles of Freemasonry, linked to a conservative liberal political bias, thus revealing the multifaceted configuration of Cuban nationalism and its consequences in the press at the end of the 19th century.